224 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



There rushes a bright, cheerful spring from its cold 

 mountain home down into the plain, and as it leaps over 

 rock and root, it dashes its snow-white foam into the daz- 

 zling sunshine, and raises its little anthem of thanks and 

 praise at every fall, in every valley. But here, also, the 

 master stands in its way and compels it, a child yet, to 

 turn the mill-wheel ; or he loads the well-grown river 

 with heavily-laden barges, that it must carry from land 

 to land to the mighty ocean. 



The fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living 

 thing that moveth upon the earth, the trees and the herbs, 

 the stones and the metals they are all slaves and serfs 

 of man. Even the lowest, made in the image of God, 

 is still master of all the powers of Nature. The South 

 Sea islander makes plants support him, and beasts serve 

 him; they build his hut on land, and carry him in boats 

 over the seas. Savage and inhospitable winter fashions 

 the water into clear blocks of ice to build the Esquimaux' 

 house; the seal furnishes oil for his lamp, the whale gives 

 him ribs for his boat, and heads for his arrows. 



But it is not the strong-arm and the skilful hand of 

 man that makes him thus master of Creation. His mind 

 is the ruler of the world, the true Lord of Nature. It 

 makes the sea and the mountain his slaves, so that the 

 ice of the pole, and the heat of the tropics must serve him 

 as he wills. And when he has mastered all that eye can 

 see, and hand can grasp, when the present has nothing 

 more to give him, and the future seems to elude his grasp, 

 he descends into the past, and raises even the spirits of 

 the departed to serve him. 



